Up to the Minute (CBS) snippet - 2006-07-12 (Mumbai bombings)
Channel: malgent
Transcript
Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)
[0:00] [music]
[0:03] >> Tuesday's bombings of commuter trains in
[0:05] Mumbai, India have raised security in
[0:07] mass transit systems around the world.
[0:10] The eight bombs tore apart the crowded
[0:12] trains during the evening commute,
[0:14] killing at least 147 people and wounding
[0:17] hundreds more. So far, no one has
[0:19] claimed responsibility for the attacks,
[0:21] but India has been the target of
[0:23] simultaneous bombings before at the
[0:26] hands of Kashmiri militants. Stephen
[0:28] Cohen is a senior fellow in foreign
[0:30] policy studies at the Brookings
[0:31] Institution. He's also the author of
[0:33] several books, including India Emerging
[0:35] Power. Dr. Cohen joins us this morning
[0:38] from our Washington Bureau with some
[0:39] insight. Good morning, Dr. Cohen.
[0:41] >> Good morning, Jeff.
[0:42] >> As I just mentioned, India has been
[0:44] targeted in the past, but any indication
[0:47] of why now?
[0:49] >> There's no particular reason for this
[0:51] timing at all. It could coincide with
[0:53] the anniversary of the Madrid bombing,
[0:54] for example, but that's just
[0:56] speculative.
[0:57] I would correct you in one sense. Some
[0:59] of the bombings that have taken place in
[1:01] India, especially in Mumbai, and this is
[1:02] the seventh such bombing in Bombay bomb
[1:04] Mumbai Bombay, same place. Really, it's
[1:07] the seventh such bombing and not all of
[1:08] them, if any of them were connected to
[1:09] Kashmir. Actually, at the same day
[1:11] yesterday that these bombings took place
[1:13] in Bombay, there were separate grenade
[1:15] attacks in Kashmir itself directed
[1:17] against tourists, both Indian and
[1:18] foreign tourists. It's not clear yet
[1:20] whether these attacks in Kashmir and the
[1:22] attacks in Bombay were linked in anyway.
[1:24] >> But you don't think this has any
[1:26] connection to the London bombings last
[1:27] year, the Madrid attacks 2 years ago? It
[1:30] seems somewhat similar.
[1:32] >> I think it does in the sense this could
[1:33] be a copycat bombing, or it could be
[1:35] that an al-Qaeda-like operation
[1:37] conceived of all three of them. India is
[1:39] on the same list as the as the Brits
[1:41] are, as we are.
[1:42] Sort of the
[1:44] of the of the radical Islamist groups,
[1:46] and this does present real problems for
[1:48] India, for Pakistan, and for the United
[1:50] States.
[1:50] >> Well, speaking of Pakistan, they insist
[1:52] they had nothing to do with this. What's
[1:53] your take on that?
[1:55] >> Well, they have to demonstrate, I think,
[1:57] beyond a shadow of doubt that they did
[1:58] have nothing to do with this. A lot of
[2:00] the terrorist groups operating in India,
[2:02] in fact, were either trained by the
[2:03] Pakistanis or or based themselves in
[2:05] Pakistan with or without Pakistani
[2:08] permission. We have no evidence about
[2:09] this particular group that carried out
[2:11] this operation, but if if the Indians
[2:12] establish a link back to Pakistan, there
[2:15] could be another major crisis, even
[2:16] another another war between India and
[2:18] Pakistan.
[2:18] >> So, we could see this escalate. There's
[2:21] been so much turmoil in the past between
[2:23] these two countries. What happens next?
[2:26] >> I think the Indians are going to try and
[2:27] use, obviously, forensic evidence to see
[2:29] where where these things came from, who
[2:31] did them, what the origin of the
[2:32] explosives are, and then then make a
[2:34] decision after after that. One of the
[2:36] issue one of the changing factors in
[2:38] this case, rather than a crisis in 2002,
[2:40] which almost led to war, is that the
[2:42] government in India is much weaker than
[2:43] it was then. The Manmohan Singh
[2:45] government is under great attack from
[2:46] the left and from other from some of its
[2:48] supporters both for being too
[2:50] pro-American and also for for being too
[2:52] too much in liberalizing the economy too
[2:55] fast. it may have to demonstrate that
[2:56] it's a strong government, which could
[2:58] make a crisis come that much faster.
[3:00] >> Is all this bitterness rooted in
[3:01] Kashmir?
[3:03] >> I'm sorry.
[3:04] >> Is all this bitterness rooted in
[3:05] Kashmir?
[3:06] >> No, I think that that's part of it, but
[3:08] it's not the whole picture at all.
[3:09] Generally, the Indian Muslims outside of
[3:12] Kashmir are relatively satisfied. I I
[3:14] doubt very much whether this is an
[3:16] Indian Muslim attack. Kashmiri Muslims
[3:18] themselves are simply exhausted and worn
[3:21] out by almost 15 years of warfare, and
[3:23] they're look many Kashmiri Muslims are
[3:25] looking for ways of of reaching a
[3:26] settlement with India and Pakistan. This
[3:28] could be a spoiler group. This could be
[3:30] a group that's unwilling to accommodate
[3:31] and
[3:32] the peace process that's going on
[3:34] between India and Pakistan. Or it could
[3:36] be a rogue a rogue group of some sort
[3:38] under nobody's control. We really don't
[3:39] have those answers yet. I think the
[3:41] Indians will turn them up pretty soon.
[3:43] >> Now that if we bring US and the US into
[3:45] the picture, how does that affect the
[3:47] US's relationship with India and
[3:49] Pakistan in wake of these attacks?
[3:51] >> Well, there really three two or three
[3:53] different ways. First of all, this is
[3:55] going to damage to least to some degree
[3:57] India's reputation as the shining India,
[3:59] the India where you want to invest your
[4:00] money, India that's growing
[4:02] economically. Bombay is both a cultural
[4:04] or at least the film capital of India,
[4:05] but it's also the financial and
[4:07] commercial capital of India. This could
[4:08] give some American companies pause in
[4:10] investing in India. I don't think that's
[4:12] likely to have a a long-term impact, but
[4:14] it's a certainly is a factor. It's
[4:16] probably one of the intentions behind
[4:17] the bombings to deter foreign investment
[4:19] from going into India. Secondly, the
[4:21] Americans the US government has a a good
[4:23] relationship with both India and
[4:25] Pakistan. Here we find two friends of
[4:27] ours apparently on the edge or could be
[4:28] on the edge and if this crisis escalates
[4:31] of another war. In the past the three or
[4:33] four previous crises we've intervened
[4:36] and tried to cool the situation down. I
[4:38] think this is another role the Bush
[4:40] administration will have to have, but
[4:41] they've yet to address the underlying
[4:43] causes of India-Pakistan conflict. We've
[4:45] encouraged the peace process or the
[4:46] dialogue between New Delhi and
[4:47] Islamabad, but that may not be enough to
[4:50] you know, to to avert another crisis.
[4:52] Again though, if this is a separate
[4:53] group and has nothing to do with the
[4:54] Pakistanis at all, then there should be
[4:57] India-Pakistan cooperation in
[4:58] eliminating these kinds of groups in in
[5:00] South Asia.
[5:00] >> Right. Following the attacks, the US
[5:02] immediately beefed up security on trains
[5:06] and subways here. A lot of politicians
[5:08] came out on Tuesday saying we need to do
[5:10] more. Is that necessary and is there
[5:13] something that can actually be done in
[5:14] the US to protect the subways and the
[5:16] trains against an attack like this?
[5:19] >> One of the features of modern life is
[5:20] that we're vulnerable in many ways and
[5:22] and if we cover up the subways, if we
[5:24] protect the subways the way we protected
[5:26] air travel, they'll find another way to
[5:28] hit us and that's really it's really
[5:30] hard to cover all the bases. But I think
[5:32] that as in Washington and New York in
[5:33] particular, the two most high-profile
[5:35] subway systems in the country, although
[5:36] I would put Chicago right up there as
[5:38] well.
[5:39] I think it is important to have a secure
[5:41] subway system as possible. And of course
[5:42] there's a lot of complaints recently
[5:44] about shifting some some homeland
[5:46] security money away from these cities
[5:47] towards towards towards other cities.
[5:49] >> All right, Stephen Cohen, senior fellow
[5:51] in foreign policy studies at the
[5:53] Brookings Institution. Thank you so
[5:54] much.
[5:55] >> Thank you for having me on. Bye-bye.